I was in Boulder, Colorado, one of the hotbeds of The Revolution in the late sixties and early seventies, and I lived in a cooperative house with a bunch of other radicals. Some of whom are still radical. But what I remember most about the street protests and demonstrations was that there was a small core of solid radicals surrounded by a huge crowd of partiers, rowdies, and semi-interested bystanders. Mostly it was college students out for a day in the sun before going back to study for examinations.

I'm afraid that the number of true radicals in the U.S. is pretty small. Our lack of a viable socialist or green third party is a good indicator of this. In fact, our most visible third parties have been on the right, a la Perot in the late 1990s.